Tents have been utilized for many years to provide privacy and shelter from the weather. Traditionally, tents have been constructed of a shell made of flexible weather-resistant material. The shell was supported by a separate frame which was connected to the shell either externally or internally. Setting up the tent often required more than one person due to the complexity of coordinating frame members with respect to the shell. Once the tent was erected, the tent was secured to the ground by any number of means, such as staking the perimeter of the shell to the ground. Staking the tent to the ground also helped keep the tent erect. Some tents required guy lines running between the ends of the tent and the ground or other objects in order to maintain the engagement between the shell and the frame and thus keep the tent erect.
As technology has developed and the uses of tents have become more specialized, tent structures have changed drastically. While large outdoor tents still have frames separate from the shell and require more than one person to erect, tents used for a small number of people, such as for camping, have been simplified. For instance, the materials used for the shell are much lighter in weight and more weather resistant to allow the tent to be folded up into a smaller space for convenient transport in a back pack and also to withstand inclement weather. Additionally, the frame systems are stronger and easier to set up, usually requiring only one person. In many types of camping tents, the frame members are resilient and provide sufficient engagement with the shell to be self-supporting, thus alleviating any need for guy lines to help keep the tent in an erect position. Most tents, however, still require some form of mechanism to attach the tent to the ground to keep it from moving in high winds or for other reasons.
Tents have become popular play items for children and young adults. They provide relatively inexpensive structures for use by children during play, their use being limited only by the imagination of the children. Camping tents, while light weight, portable, and relatively easy to erect, are not ideal for children's play toys. Camping tents are made of materials specifically suited for providing sturdy shelter for outdoor use, oftentimes allowing the user to depend on the tent in potentially life-threatening situations. Camping tents are thus overbuilt for use as play toys for children.
With these lower performance standards in mind, play tent makers have developed play tents concentrating more on easy erection and portability as opposed to weather protection and structural strength. Play tents have been developed based on the traditional shape of the tent, generally having four sides and a roof. The basic structure of play tents have been only minimally transformed into play items for children, for instance by decorating the exterior of the tent with certain designs that represent any number of favorite scenes for children. Many of these tents are inconvenient to assemble and disassemble, and they typically include many separate components which must be stored when the tent is not in use.
Recently, both camping and play tents have been developed with integral frames that automatically erect the tent. This type of tent uses a frame made of resilient material that springs into a predetermined form when released from a stored position. Conversely, these same tents are able to be reduced in size by bending or twisting the resilient frame into the stored position. The benefits of having a self-erecting and easily stored tent are countered by the fact that only limited tent shapes can result from this type of frame. Typically, the tent shapes formed by the self-erecting resilient tent frames are limited to a tubular, smooth, nondescript shape. As a play tent, a greater variety of shapes would be beneficial by providing more options for fanciful designs.
It is with respect to these considerations and other background information relative to prior art tents that the significant improvements of the present invention have evolved.